Replies

Nothing but revulsion .. that’s what I feel on hearing this.

God bless our noblemen and women .. our extraordinarly courageous and long-suffering troops and their families, who want and deserve to complete this mission, with honor!

That they and their valiant efforts can be be used as convenient pawns and tools for these despicable RATS’ political psychodramas is beneath the most base depravity and contempt. They’re putting a stake right in the hearts of the vital spirit and morale of our wonderful guys and gals.

Let’s support our troops and their mission!! I signed.

God bless and protect our intrepid CIC, Pres. George W. Bush!

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http://barbette.blogspot.com/2007/04/families-united-petition.html

Families United petition

The father of a fallen Marine asks for our help.

My name is John Ellsworth and I am the father of LCPL Justin M. Ellsworth U.S.M.C. who was killed in the fight for Fallujah on 13 NOV 2004.

I am the Co-Chair of “Families United for our Troops and their Mission” which is a member of the “America Supports You” network. We are a grassroots coalition of Gold Star families, veterans, families with loved ones in harm’s way, and Americans who share a deep appreciation for our men and women in uniform and support them in their efforts to make America safer by winning the War On Terror.

We at Families United have recently started an on-line petition to show support for our troops and will be delivering it to our Congressmen around September 11th 2007. We have received endorsement from the National V.F.W. in this quest for ONE MILLION SIGNATURES!

I am requesting that you provide a link to this important petition on your web site and notification to all of your members to participate in this event. To link directly to this petition:

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/support-america-petition.html.

I believe that this is too important to ignore any longer and we need to let our troops know America really does support them, even if Congress doesn’t.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me

Repectfully,

John M. Ellsworth,
Proud Father of LCPL Justin M. Ellsworth U.S.M.C.
K.I.A. / Operation Iraqi Freedom
13 NOV 2004 - Fallujah, Iraq

http://familiesunitedmission.com/docs/multimedia/index_new2.shtml

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/support-america-petition.html

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There’s no doubt it’s a critically huge and challenging mission that will take much more time, but DON’T believe there’s no progress:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009900

ANBAR DISPATCH

Iraq’s Real ‘Civil War’
Sunni tribes battle al Qaeda terrorists in the insurgency’s stronghold.

BY BING WEST AND OWEN WEST
Thursday, April 5, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

ANBAR PROVINCE, Iraq—Last fall, President Bush, citing the violence in Baghdad, said that the U.S. strategy in Iraq was “slowly failing.” At that time, though, more Americans were dying in Anbar Province, stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. About the size of Utah, Anbar has the savagery, lawlessness and violence of America’s Wild West in the 1870s.

The two most lethal cities in Iraq are Fallujah and Ramadi, and the 25-mile swath of farmlands between them is Indian Country.

Imagine the surprise of the veteran Iraqi battalion last November when a young sheik, leader of a local tribe outside Ramadi, offered to point out the insurgents hiding in his hometown. “We have decided that by helping you,” he said, “we are helping God.”

For years, the tribes had supported the insurgents who claimed to be waging jihad. Now, citing the same religion, a tribe wanted to switch sides. Col. Mohammed, the battalion commander, accepted the offer.

“The irhabi (terrorists) call themselves martyrs. They are liars,” he said. “I lost a soldier and when I pulled off his armor, there was the blood of a martyr.”

With Iraqi soldiers and Marines providing protection, the sheik and his tribesmen rolled through town, pointing at various men.

The sweep netted 30 insurgents, including “Abu Muslim,” who was wanted for the murder of a jundi (Iraqi soldier). “He was just standing there waving at us with all the others,” one jundi said during the minor celebration at the detention facility.

Six months ago, American intelligence reports about Anbar were dire. Although the Marines won the firefights, insurgents controlled the population—the classic guerrilla pattern.

Among the groups, the extremists called al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) had achieved dominance. In 2004, AQI briefly held Fallujah, where they whipped teenagers who talked back, bludgeoned women who wore lipstick and beheaded “collaborators”—hapless passersby and truckers. AQI preached a persuasive message: Our way or the grave.

In Anbar, AQI became the occupier, shaking down truck drivers and extorting shop owners. In the young sheik’s zone, AQI controlled the fuel market.

Each month, 10 trucks with 80,000 gallons of heavily subsidized gasoline and five trucks with kerosene were due to arrive.

Instead, AQI diverted most shipments to Jordan or Syria where prices were higher, netting $10,000 per shipment and antagonizing 30,000 shivering townspeople.

No local cop dared to make an arrest. The tribal power structure, built over centuries, was shoved aside. Sheiks who objected were shot or blown up, while others fled.

In late 2005, acceptably-trained Iraqi battalions began to join the persistent Americans in Anbar. AQI resorted to suicide attacks and roadside bombs, and avoided direct fights.

Sub-tribes began to kill AQI members in retaliation for individual crimes, and discovered that AQI was ruthless, but not tough. Near the Syrian border, an entire tribe joined forces with the Marines and drove AQI from the city of al Qaim.

By the fall of 2006 AQI had become the oppressor, careless in its destructive swath, while the American and Iraqi forces persisted with their mix of force of arms and civil engagement.

When an AQI suicide car bomb attacked an Anbar market in November, killing a Marine and nine civilians, the Marine battalion commander and his Iraqi counterpart offered medical care at the local clinic for the entire town, including the first gynecological examinations many local women had seen. This was not an isolated event, and the people noticed.

With a war-weary population buoying them, 25 of the 31 Anbar sub-tribes have pledged to fight the insurgents over the past five months, sending thousands of tribesmen into the police and army. Led by Sheik Abu Sittar, who has called this an “awakening,” the tribes believed they were joining the winners.

Politics in Baghdad have swirled around reinstating former Baathists to their prior jobs, thereby supposedly diminishing the insurgency. The central government, though, has given Anbar such paltry funds that jobs are scant, Baathist or not. In Anbar, reconciliation theories count far less than that eternal adage: Show me the money.

When the sheiks delivered thousands of police recruits, they consolidated their patrimonial power by providing jobs, plus pocketing a fee rumored at $400 paid by each recruit.

The tribal police then provided security that permitted American civic action projects profitable to contractors connected, of course, to the sheiks. Our Congress has just appropriated an emergency supplemental for our troops that included millions to grow spinach and store peanuts; in Anbar, the sheiks are filling potholes that can conceal IEDs.

*snip*

The real value of the tribes lies in providing specific information and recruits for the police and army. The tribes openly acknowledge that it has been the personal behavior, strength of arms and persistence of the American forces that convinced them to join the fight.

“The American coalition is the only thing,” Sheik Abureeshah of Ramadi said, “that makes the Iraqi government give anything to Anbar.”

The tribes want their share of oil revenues, more power and a cut of the American contracts. With American combat forces likely to leave within a year or two, it is the Iraqi Government that must determine the modesty of the demands.

But to put the state of the province in perspective, six months ago the head of Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, told the Congress that “Anbar was not under control.” Last week the U.S. commander in Anbar, Maj. Gen. Walt Gaskin, said he was “very, very optimistic.”

Gen. David Petraeus, the top general in Iraq, recently persuaded Mr. Maliki to visit Ramadi and meet with the tribes.

That was the start of the bargaining. The Iraqi government faces a classic risk-versus-reward calculation. The reward is that the tribes will provide the information, recruits and local policing that shrinks the area where AQI operates.

With less area to search, the Iraqi Army can concentrate wherever al Qaeda tries to rest or regroup, eventually drying up the swamp. The risk is that, if the Shiite-dominated government refuses reasonable terms, the tribes use their military muscle to reach a truce with AQI and the province reverts.

Baghdad is the critical battleground. But it is only in Anbar that the Congress agrees with the president that U.S. forces must combat the AQI terrorists. The tribes will learn to play that card to keep pressure on the central government not to neglect them.

Civil war between the Sunni tribes and the extremists has broken out in Anbar Province, the stronghold of the insurgency, and the U.S. and Iraqi government should support it. Anbar is like the American West in the 1870s. Security will come to towns in Anbar as it came to Tombstone—by the emergence of tough, local sheriffs with guns, local power and local laws.

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God bless our resolute President, our awesome troops and their critical mission! God bless America.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1811570/posts

BUMP!!!